I was 14 years old and had just gotten my driver's permit. I had been waiting on this day for a long time. Since my birthday that year fell on the weekend, I had to wait until Monday to take the test. I'm pretty sure I didn't sleep a wink the night before and it seemed like Monday went on forever until school was finally out and my grandfather drove me to the county seat to take the test. Fortunately I passed both the written and driving test on my first try and we left to go back home with me behind the wheel and my grandfather riding next to me. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me in my young life.

 

In Arkansas, as in many other states, the permit doesn't become an actual license until you're sixteen. For the intervening two years, you can only drive when accompanied by a licensed driver. My particular problem was that I had been going steady with my girlfriend for two years and we had never had the opportunity to be alone. We were always accompanied by either my folks or her folks, and sometimes both. I saw the driver's permit as a way to finally be alone with her so I began a lobbying campaign immediately to pick her up, take her to the Dairy Queen and have a coke while we sat in the car and talked with no one around but her and I. My folks, of course, said no because that would be breaking the law but I was relentless, like I usually am when there's something I really, really want. I assured them over and over that we wouldn't go anywhere else and that we wouldn't be gone for more than an hour.

 

After two weeks of begging and pleading, they finally relented as long as this arrangement I had come up with was also OK with my girls' parents. That's the way things were done back then. My mom called her mom and after a lengthy conversation on the phone, they agreed to let me put my plan into action. I was even more excited than I had been when I got my permit which is also the way life tends to work. We have a peak experience and we think nothing can ever top it, but something always does.

 

I picked up my girlfriend at 7 p.m., promising both sets of parents to be gone for only an hour. We did exactly as I had promised. We drove to the Dairy Queen, ordered a couple of cherry cokes and then just sat in the car and talked. It was a liberating experience and I knew it was my very first step on the way to adulthood.

 

We left the Dairy Queen for home 20 minutes ahead of time because I knew if I got home on time, or even a little early, both sets of parents would see that I had been true to my word and I would be able to repeat the experience in the future.

 

We were just a few blocks from her house when I noticed a police car in my rear view mirror. I only drove another block or so before he turned his red lights on. I had been busted the very first time I had ever broken the law. Fear and panic overwhelmed me immediately. I didn't know what to do because I knew I was in big trouble. So instead of pulling over and taking my medicine like a man, I kept on driving.

 

We probably reached speeds of 15 to 20 mph as we drove up one street and down the other because I wasn't trying to get away. I just didn't want to stop. It was the same feeling I had experienced before when I would get in trouble at school. The school would always call your parents and tell them what you did and you knew you were going to be in a heap of trouble when you got home so you walked as slowly as you could walk on the way home and you took the longest route as well because you knew what was going to happen when you got there.

 

This was the same thing. I knew as soon as I pulled over that I was going to meet the wrath of the police officer behind me and I was just trying to postpone that meeting for as long as possible.

 

As I continued to drive, we headed out of town and as I crested the top of a hill, at the bottom you either had to go left or right because the street dead-ended at the bottom. In my state of fear and panic, I couldn't decide whether to go left or right so I went straight; through a fence and into a ditch.

The policeman jumped out of his car, yanked open my car door, pulled me out of my car, threw me into his and off we went. He left my 13-year-old girlfriend in my car, with the two back wheels all the way off the ground because the car was nose deep in the ditch.

 

This policeman was so mad the veins on his neck were popping out and his face was as red as I had ever seen anyone's. He was absolutely reading me the riot act as we headed for the police department and I was so scared I was shaking all over. About half-way there, he asked me who I was and I told him my name. He gave me a strange look and asked me if I was related to Judge Hendricks. I told him the Judge was my grandfather. As scared as I was, I couldn't help but notice a change in his attitude and tone of voice. He was still getting on to me but not with the fervor he had been exercising just moments before. We drove a couple of more blocks towards the police station before he turned down another street. I didn't think much about it because there were several different ways to get to the police station. But we only drove one block and then he turned again and I knew we were now going back towards my car instead of going towards the police station.

 

As we arrived back at my car, he told me that since he had decided to deal with me informally, that it would probably be best if we kept this incident just between us. He certainly didn't have to talk me into that. He even got out of his police car and helped me push it out of the ditch. I was only three minutes late in getting her home because this was a small town and the entire scene started and ended in a fifteen minute period. The only negative consequence I experienced over this ordeal was that, for some reason, my girlfriend wouldn't go out with me anymore after that.

 

The policeman chose his course of action because I'm sure he was concerned about maybe losing his job if he arrested the Judge's grandson. Because of that concern, no one ever found out about that incident until years later. If my grandfather had not been the judge, I would have been processed as a juvenile offender and the whole course of my life might have changed. Some of the friends I had had forever wouldn't have been allowed to hang out with me anymore because the mantra of parents in that generation was that you're known by the company you keep. Girls that I ended up dating later wouldn't have been allowed to date me for the same reason. I would have made the principals' "short list." The short list is a list of names that every principal has of the known trouble-makers in school. If something bad happens in school, the principal always looks for the culprit from the names on his list. By 8 o'clock the next morning, everyone in town would have known what I had done because we had an unofficial calling tree in our town second to none. There's every chance that, if I had been officially processed that night, I wouldn't have ended up joining the Tulsa Police Department and if I hadn't of done that, I might not have finished college and gone on to graduate school, which means I would have never been a college professor and I wouldn't be where I am today. It literally could have changed my life forever.

 

That happens so many times in our lives. If my good friend Ralph hadn't of insisted on me going to the football game with him and his date, I probably would have never seen her again, which means we wouldn't have fallen in love, gotten married and stayed married for 25 years while we raised three beautiful children in the process.

 

The list of choices I made or didn't make throughout my life that would have significantly changed the course of my life could go on and on and, if you think about it, I'm sure you can find instance after instance of the same kinds of choices in your own life. Every choice we make impacts on the person we become and the course and direction our lives take.

 

Make those choices wisely.

 

This month is National Domestic Violence Awareness month. If you're aware of this crime occurring in your neighborhood or community, please let someone know. Doing so can literally save lives.

 

I'm flying to Las Vegas today to see Jimmy Buffet in concert at the MGM Grand Hotel. I'll have a full report in next week's column.